Friday, November 30, 2012

Deep Time = Deep Morality

I want to spend more time on this theme, and on the related 100,000 Year Project, but end of the semester activities are getting in the way. Children need their projects finished, and many lack both the skills to make them and the intellect for planning and execution. There is a fair amount of plaintive desperation at this time of year, which actually can be both irritating and cute simultaneously.

So, Old Uncle John must help with the soapbox derby mechanics of the situation. Still, I've also managed to finish my bronze Mechanicules, and have others already in the wax stage. Below are the finished bronzes.

If you have to ask... they use the Android OS, duh!

I am going to submit a project to Kickstarter involving these things, but after viewing other projects there, I have drastically altered my plans. I can see that a great deal of effort needs to go into presenting the project. Presentation is 90% of the deal, so I will be taking my time thinking about this. It promises to be a great deal of fun/huge pain in the ass.

I would like to note my amusement at the current doomsday scenario over at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Armageddon 2.0. I don't know, maybe read the link first before I present my amused observation, to wit:

The people worst affected by all but one of the dystopian catastrophes presented live in the developed world. Flu pandemic, cybersabotage, climate change. The hardest hit will be all the soft, sleek pampered little pussycats in the first world. If you've lived your life up to your neck in shit, you got no problems - minimally affected by these disasters.

Climate change? Even that, my suspicion is the higher latitudes heat more, not so much the low latitudes. Drought is a big problem, but if you infrastructure challenged already (and not living close to shore), sea level rise is hardly a biggie. Ah, but places like the US of A will no doubt be hit the hardest.

About Me

The term "random walk" is attributed to Karl Pearson, through a 1905 letter exchange in the journal Nature. It describes the path of a hypothetical drunkard. Since I hardly ever drink, I suppose that description fits me as well as any other. Other than that, I'm a well-muscled, good-looking, middle-aged, no-nonsense Northern Barbarian type that would just as soon put you to work as say "Hello" to you. So, Hello there! Now get back to work!